Six Emotions of Buying Decisions
All buying decisions stem from the following six emotions:
Greed - Yay, instant gratification
Fear - I lose if I don’t buy now
Altruism — This would be great for …
Envy — I gotta keep up with the Joneses
Pride — It’d be smart to buy now
Shame — It’d be stupid not to buy now
Every successful sales approach either creates or augments these emotional states and when enough of them are present, a buying decision is inevitable. Tapping into people’s emotional states requires knowing something about their belief system. It is the belief system that determines how emotions play out.
For example, if a potential buyer sees Google as their main competitor, fear and envy may be vivid if the sales approach emphasizes competing with Google. By contrast if the buyer is an executive at Google, they may experience more fear and envy when presented with the idea of an unidentified startup with the potential to disrupt Google’s business.
Similarly, a message about the environmentally friendliness of a “green” product will only ignite the altruism emotion of a person who cares about the environment.
In other words, if you’re going to create the emotions that drive decision-making, you need to know not just the audience’s current emotional state, but also the beliefs they’re using to evaluate the emotional weight of anything you might present.
And that means research.
The more thoroughly you research your audience and their beliefs, the better you’ll be able to marshal their emotions.
It sounds counterintuitive, but it is only in context that information finally comes into play. The emotional change you’re seeking in your customer will likely result from the expression of new and reframing of old information, and more importantly, the emotions they trigger.
For example, suppose you’re trying to sell an inventory control system to a high-tech firm. Your research indicates that:
- The company has been dinged by investors for having high inventories
- The company’s main competitor has just implemented a “just-in-time” inventory system
That’s just information. But what is really important is the emotional effect those two facts may have when juxtaposed with one another, based upon the prospect’s likely belief system.
Similarly, let’s suppose your research also reveals that the prospect’s CIO was just replaced and the new CIO was promoted from the ranks. What’s important in this case is that the new CIO may lack confidence and is probably risk-averse.
This handy bit of information helps you focus your sales approach to play upon the new CIO’s likely belief system (i.e., If I screw up, I could look bad, and possibly lose my job).
The goal is not to prey on these emotions, but to understand better how they impact buying decisions. It’s a lot like message transmission. The highest likelihood of success exists when someone is receiving at the time (and the message) you’re transmitting.